Michael Koryta isn’t just one of the finest authors working in the crime genre today. He’s simply one of today’s finest authors, period. His stories are taut, compelling, and beautifully rendered. His understanding of human nature-the good, the evil, and all the gray between-is masterful. THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is Koryta at his best.

We turn, three men bound by love, by history, by circumstance, and most certainly by the awful grace of God, and together walk a narrow lane where headstones press close all around, reminding me gently of Warren Redstone’s parting wisdom, which I understand now. The dead are never far from us. They’re in our hearts and on our minds and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air.

What life gives us, good or bad, we seldom deserve.

The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day.

Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in.

I used to ask for an easy life, now I ask to be strong.

It was best to believe in all possibilities...there were more mysteries in the world than a man could ever hope to understand.